'Whale fjord'

'Whale fjord' is the literal translation of Hvalfjordur, a fjord on the
west coast north of Reykyajik. Apparently some 17 species of whales,
dolphins and porpoises are found here.

What we found there today was quite different - Midsandur Whaling
Station. It was a wet, cold, windy day, and a bleak, forbidding
location. John Burton was with us and described vividly how and where
the whale would be processed once it had been towed up the slipway from
the fjord. By his estimates the station was big enough to process Fin
whales, the second biggest mammal that has ever lived.

The whole place was eerie. Almost Marie Celeste-like in appearance - all
the equipment was run down and rusty, everything was covered in peeling
paint - but it still seemed like the place had just been abandoned
before we got there. Maybe it had been looked after in the intervening
years.

There were boots and jackets hung up on the lockers, and harpoons
propped against the wall in the metal workshop. There were even flat
packed cardboard boxes which said 'frozen whale meat' in English above
some Japanese lettering.

This station was used to process the whales the last time Iceland did
'scientific whaling' in the late 80s. Fin and Sei whales were processed
into pet food, animal feed, oil and meat - over half of which was
shipped to Japan.

A quite distressing place - but one I'm glad to have experienced.

-- Willie